No More Learning

A mother tells her infant, that _two and two make four_; the child
remembers the proposition, and is able to count four to all the purposes
of life, till the course of his education brings him among philosophers,
who fright him from his former knowledge, by telling him, that four is a
certain aggregate of units; that all numbers being only the repetition
of an unit, which, though not a number itself, is the parent, root, or
original of all number, _four_ is the denomination assigned to a certain
number of such repetitions. The only danger is, lest, when he first
hears these dreadful sounds, the pupil should run away; if he has but
the courage to stay till the conclusion, he will find that, when
speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.

An illustrious example of this species of eloquence may be found in
"Letters concerning Mind. " The author begins by declaring, that "the
sorts of things are things that now are, have been, and shall be, and
the things that strictly _are_. " In this position, except the last
clause, in which he uses something of the scholastick language, there is
nothing but what every man has heard, and imagines himself to know. But
who would not believe that some wonderful novelty is presented to his
intellect, when he is afterwards told, in the true bugbear style, that
"the _ares_, in the former sense, are things that lie between the
_have-beens_ and _shall-bes_. The _have-beens_ are things that are past;
the _shall-bes_ are things that are to come; and the things that _are_,
in the latter sense, are things that have not been, nor shall be, nor
stand in the midst of such as are before them, or shall be after them.
The things that _have been_, and _shall be_, have respect to present,
past, and future.

"Those likewise that now _are_ have moreover place; that, for instance,
which is here, that which is to the east, that which is to the west. "

All this, my dear reader, is very strange; but though it be strange, it
is not new; survey these wonderful sentences again, and they will be
found to contain nothing more than very plain truths, which, till this
author arose, had always been delivered in plain language[1].


[1] These "Letters on Mind" were written by a Mr. Petvin, who after some
years again astounded the literary public by sending forth, in
diction equally terrific, another tract entitled a "Summary of the
Soul's Perceptive Faculties," 1768. He was at that time compared to
Duns Scotus, the subtle Doctor, who, in the weakness of old age,
wept because he could not understand the subtleties of his earlier
writings.




No. 37. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1758.

Those who are skilled in the extraction and preparation of metals
declare, that iron is every where to be found; and that not only its
proper ore is copiously treasured in the caverns of the earth, but that
its particles are dispersed throughout all other bodies.

If the extent of the human view could comprehend the whole frame of the
universe, I believe it would be found invariably true, that Providence
has given that in greatest plenty, which the condition of life makes of
greatest use; and that nothing is penuriously imparted, or placed far
from the reach of man, of which a more liberal distribution, or more
easy acquisition, would increase real and rational felicity.

Iron is common, and gold is rare. Iron contributes so much to supply the
wants of nature, that its use constitutes much of the difference between
savage and polished life, between the state of him that slumbers in
European palaces, and him that shelters himself in the cavities of a
rock from the chilness of the night, or the violence of the storm. Gold
can never be hardened into saws or axes; it can neither furnish
instruments of manufacture, utensils of agriculture, nor weapons of
defence; its only quality is to shine, and the value of its lustre
arises from its scarcity.

Throughout the whole circle, both of natural and moral life, necessaries
are as iron, and superfluities as gold. What we really need we may
readily obtain; so readily, that far the greater part of mankind has, in
the wantonness of abundance, confounded natural with artificial desires,
and invented necessities for the sake of employment, because the mind is
impatient of inaction, and life is sustained with so little labour, that
the tediousness of idle time cannot otherwise be supported.

Thus plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the
poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized nations,
proceeds often from that change of manners which opulence has produced.
Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the
name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

When Socrates passed through shops of toys and ornaments, he cried out,
"How many things are here which I do not need! " And the same exclamation
may every man make who surveys the common accommodations of life.

Superfluity and difficulty begin together. To dress food for the stomach
is easy, the art is to irritate the palate when the stomach is sufficed.
A rude hand may build walls, form roofs, and lay floors, and provide all
that warmth and security require; we only call the nicer artificers to
carve the cornice, or to paint the ceilings. Such dress as may enable
the body to endure the different seasons, the most unenlightened nations
have been able to procure; but the work of science begins in the
ambition of distinction, in variations of fashion, and emulation of
elegance. Corn grows with easy culture; the gardener's experiments are
only employed to exalt the flavours of fruits, and brighten the colours
of flowers.

Even of knowledge, those parts are most easy which are generally
necessary. The intercourse of society is maintained without the
elegancies of language. Figures, criticisms, and refinements, are the
work of those whom idleness makes weary of themselves. The commerce of
the world is carried on by easy methods of computation. Subtilty and
study are required only when questions are invented merely to puzzle,
and calculations are extended to show the skill of the calculator. The
light of the sun is equally beneficial to him whose eyes tell him that
it moves, and to him whose reason persuades him that it stands still;
and plants grow with the same luxuriance, whether we suppose earth or
water the parent of vegetation.

If we raise our thoughts to nobler inquiries, we shall still find
facility concurring with usefulness. No man needs stay to be virtuous,
till the moralists have determined the essence of virtue; our duty is
made apparent by its proximate consequences, though the general and
ultimate reason should never be discovered. Religion may regulate the
life of him to whom the Scotists and Thomists are alike unknown; and the
assertors of fate and free-will, however different in their talk, agree
to act in the same manner.

It is not my intention to depreciate the politer arts or abstruser
studies. That curiosity which always succeeds ease and plenty, was
undoubtedly given us as a proof of capacity which our present state is
not able to fill, as a preparative for some better mode of existence,
which shall furnish employment for the whole soul, and where pleasure
shall be adequate to our powers of fruition. In the mean time, let us
gratefully acknowledge that goodness which grants us ease at a cheap
rate, which changes the seasons where the nature of heat and cold has
not been yet examined, and gives the vicissitudes of day and night to
those who never marked the tropicks, or numbered the constellations.




No. 38. SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1759.

Since the publication of the letter concerning the condition of those
who are confined in gaols by their creditors, an inquiry is said to have
been made, by which it appears that more than twenty thousand[1] are at
this time prisoners for debt.

We often look with indifference on the successive parts of that, which,
if the whole were seen together, would shake us with emotion. A debtor
is dragged to prison, pitied for a moment, and then forgotten; another
follows him, and is lost alike in the caverns of oblivion; but when the
whole mass of calamity rises up at once, when twenty thousand reasonable
beings are heard all groaning in unnecessary misery, not by the
infirmity of nature, but the mistake or negligence of policy, who can
forbear to pity and lament, to wonder and abhor?

There is here no need of declamatory vehemence: we live in an age of
commerce and computation; let us, therefore, coolly inquire what is the
sum of evil which the imprisonment of debtors brings upon our country.

It seems to be the opinion of the later computists, that the inhabitants
of England do not exceed six millions, of which twenty thousand is the
three-hundredth part. What shall we say of the humanity or the wisdom of
a nation, that voluntarily sacrifices one in every three hundred to
lingering destruction?

The misfortunes of an individual do not extend their influence to many;
yet, if we consider the effects of consanguinity and friendship, and the
general reciprocation of wants and benefits, which make one man dear or
necessary to another, it may reasonably be supposed, that every man
languishing in prison gives trouble of some kind to two others who love
or need him. By this multiplication of misery we see distress extended
to the hundredth part of the whole society.

If we estimate at a shilling a day what is lost by the inaction, and
consumed in the support of each man thus chained down to involuntary
idleness, the publick loss will rise in one year to three hundred
thousand pounds; in ten years to more than a sixth part of our
circulating coin.

I am afraid that those who are best acquainted with the state of our
prisons will confess that my conjecture is too near the truth, when I
suppose that the corrosion of resentment, the heaviness of sorrow, the
corruption of confined air, the want of exercise, and sometimes of food,
the contagion of diseases, from which there is no retreat, and the
severity of tyrants, against whom there can be no resistance, and all
the complicated horrours of a prison, put an end every year to the life
of one in four of those that are shut up from the common comforts of
human life.

Thus perish yearly five thousand men overborne with sorrow, consumed by
famine, or putrefied by filth; many of them in the most vigorous and
useful part of life; for the thoughtless and imprudent are commonly
young, and the active and busy are seldom old.

According to the rule generally received, which supposes that one in
thirty dies yearly, the race of man may be said to be renewed at the end
of thirty years. Who would have believed till now, that of every English
generation, a hundred and fifty thousand perish in our gaols? that in
every century, a nation eminent for science, studious of commerce,
ambitious of empire, should willingly lose, in noisome dungeons, five
hundred thousand of its inhabitants; a number greater than has ever been
destroyed in the same time by pestilence and the sword?

A very late occurrence may show us the value of the number which we thus
condemn to be useless; in the reestablishment of the trained bands,
thirty thousand are considered as a force sufficient against all
exigencies. While, therefore, we detain twenty thousand in prison, we
shut up in darkness and uselessness two-thirds of an army which
ourselves judge equal to the defence of our country.

The monastick institutions have been often blamed, as tending to retard
the increase of mankind. And, perhaps, retirement ought rarely to be
permitted, except to those whose employment is consistent with
abstraction, and who, though solitary, will not be idle; to those whom
infirmity makes useless to the commonwealth, or to those who have paid
their due proportion to society, and who, having lived for others, may
be honourably dismissed to live for themselves. But whatever be the evil
or the folly of these retreats, those have no right to censure them
whose prisons contain greater numbers than the monasteries of other
countries. It is, surely, less foolish and less criminal to permit
inaction than compel it; to comply with doubtful opinions of happiness,
than condemn to certain and apparent misery; to indulge the
extravagancies of erroneous piety, than to multiply and enforce
temptations to wickedness.

The misery of gaols is not half their evil: they are filled with every
corruption which poverty and wickedness can generate between them; with
all the shameless and profligate enormities that can be produced by the
impudence of ignominy, the rage of want, and the malignity of despair.
In a prison the awe of the publick eye is lost, and the power of the law
is spent; there are few fears, there are no blushes. The lewd inflame
the lewd, the audacious harden the audacious. Every one fortifies
himself as he can against his own sensibility, endeavours to practise on
others the arts which are practised on himself; and gains the kindness
of his associates by similitude of manners.

Thus some sink amidst their misery, and others survive only to propagate
villany. It may be hoped, that our lawgivers will at length take away
from us this power of starving and depraving one another; but, if there
be any reason why this inveterate evil should not be removed in our age,
which true policy has enlightened beyond any former time, let those,
whose writings form the opinions and the practices of their
contemporaries, endeavour to transfer the reproach of such imprisonment
from the debtor to the creditor, till universal infamy shall pursue the
wretch whose wantonness of power, or revenge of disappointment, condemns
another to torture and to ruin; till he shall be hunted through the
world as an enemy to man, and find in riches no shelter from contempt.

Surely, he whose debtor has perished in prison, although he may acquit
himself of deliberate murder, must at least have his mind clouded with
discontent, when he considers how much another has suffered from him;
when he thinks on the wife bewailing her husband, or the children
begging the bread which their father would have earned. If there are any
made so obdurate by avarice or cruelty, as to revolve these consequences
without dread or pity, I must leave them to be awakened by some other
power, for I write only to human beings[2].


[1] This number was, at that time, confidently published; but the author
has since found reason to question the calculation.

[2] A series of Essays, entitled the Farrago, was published in 1792, for
the benefit of the society for the discharge and relief of persons
imprisoned for small debts. See Dr. Drake's Essays on the Rambler,
&c. vol. ii. p. 427. The Congress of the United States passed a law
in 1824, abolishing arrest and imprisonment for debt. The measure
has yet to stand the test of practice and experience. See Idler 22.
and note.




No. 39. SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 1759.

_Nec genus ornatus unun est: quod quamque decebit,
Eligat_--OVID. Ars. Am. iii. 135.

TO THE IDLER.

Sir,

As none look more diligently about them than those who have nothing to
do, or who do nothing, I suppose it has not escaped your observation,
that the bracelet, an ornament of great antiquity, has been for some
years revived among the English ladies.

The genius of our nation is said, I know not for what reason, to appear
rather in improvement than invention. The bracelet was known in the
earliest ages; but it was formerly only a hoop of gold, or a cluster of
jewels, and showed nothing but the wealth or vanity of the wearer, till
our ladies, by carrying pictures on their wrists, made their ornaments
works of fancy and exercises of judgment.

This addition of art to luxury is one of the innumerable proofs that
might be given of the late increase of female erudition; and I have
often congratulated myself that my life has happened at a time when
those, on whom so much of human felicity depends, have learned to think
as well as speak, and when respect takes possession of the ear, while
love is entering at the eye.

I have observed, that, even by the suffrages of their own sex, those
ladies are accounted wisest, who do not yet disdain to be taught; and,
therefore, I shall offer a few hints for the completion of the bracelet,
without any dread of the fate of Orpheus.

To the ladies, who wear the pictures of their husbands or children, or
any other relations, I can offer nothing more decent or more proper. It
is reasonable to believe that she intends at least to perform her duty,
who carries a perpetual excitement to recollection and caution, whose
own ornaments must upbraid her with every failure, and who, by an open
violation of her engagements, must for ever forfeit her bracelet.

Yet I know not whether it is the interest of the husband to solicit very
earnestly a place on the bracelet. If his image be not in the heart, it
is of small avail to hang it on the hand. A husband encircled with
diamonds and rubies may gain some esteem, but will never excite love. He
that thinks himself most secure of his wife, should be fearful of
persecuting her continually with his presence. The joy of life is
variety; the tenderest love requires to be rekindled by intervals of
absence; and Fidelity herself will be wearied with transferring her eye
only from the same man to the same picture.

In many countries the condition of every woman is known by her dress.
Marriage is rewarded with some honourable distinction, which celibacy is
forbidden to usurp. Some such information a bracelet might afford. The
ladies might enrol themselves in distinct classes, and carry in open
view the emblems of their order. The bracelet of the authoress may
exhibit the Muses in a grove of laurel; the housewife may show Penelope
with her web; the votaress of a single life may carry Ursula with her
troop of virgins; the gamester may have Fortune with her wheel; and
those women _that have no character at all_ may display a field of white
enamel, as imploring help to fill up the vacuity.

There is a set of ladies who have outlived most animal pleasures, and,
having nothing rational to put in their place, solace with cards the
loss of what time has taken away, and the want of what wisdom, having
never been courted, has never given. For these I know not how to provide
a proper decoration. They cannot be numbered among the gamesters; for
though they are always at play, they play for nothing, and never rise to
the dignity of hazard or the reputation of skill. They neither love nor
are loved, and cannot be supposed to contemplate any human image with
delight. Yet, though they despair to please, they always wish to be
fine, and, therefore, cannot be without a bracelet. To this sisterhood I
can recommend nothing more likely to please them than the king of clubs,
a personage very comely and majestick, who will never meet their eyes
without reviving the thought of some past or future party, and who may
be displayed, in the act of dealing, with grace and propriety.

But the bracelet which might be most easily introduced into general use
is a small convex mirror, in which the lady may see herself whenever she
shall lift her hand. This will be a perpetual source of delight. Other
ornaments are of use only in publick, but this will furnish
gratifications to solitude. This will show a face that must always
please; she who is followed by admirers will carry about her a perpetual
justification of the publick voice; and she who passes without notice
may appeal from prejudice to her own eyes.

But I know not why the privilege of the bracelet should be confined to
women; it was in former ages worn by heroes in battle; and, as modern
soldiers are always distinguished by splendour of dress, I should
rejoice to see the bracelet added to the cockade.

In hope of this ornamental innovation, I have spent some thoughts upon
military bracelets. There is no passion more heroick than love; and,
therefore, I should be glad to see the sons of England marching in the
field, every man with the picture of a woman of honour bound upon his
hand. But since in the army, as every where else, there will always be
men who love nobody but themselves, or whom no woman of honour will
permit to love her, there is a necessity of some other distinctions and
devices.

I have read of a prince who, having lost a town, ordered the name of it
to be every morning shouted in his ear till it should be recovered. For
the same purpose I think the prospect of Minorca might be properly worn
on the hands of some of our generals: others might delight their
countrymen, and dignify themselves, with a view of Rochfort as it
appeared to them at sea: and those that shall return from the conquest
of America, may exhibit the warehouse of Frontenac, with an inscription
denoting, that it was taken in less than three years by less than twenty
thousand men.

I am, Sir, &c.

TOM TOY.




No. 40. SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1759.

The practice of appending to the narratives of publick transactions more
minute and domestick intelligence, and filling the newspapers with
advertisements, has grown up by slow degrees to its present state.

Genius is shown only by invention. The man who first took advantage of
the general curiosity that was excited by a siege or battle, to betray
the readers of news into the knowledge of the shop where the best puffs
and powder were to be sold, was undoubtedly a man of great sagacity, and
profound skill in the nature of man. But when he had once shown the way,
it was easy to follow him; and every man now knows a ready method of
informing the publick of all that he desires to buy or sell; whether his
wares be material or intellectual; whether he makes clothes, or teaches
the mathematicks; whether he be a tutor that wants a pupil, or a pupil
that wants a tutor.

Whatever is common is despised. Advertisements are now so numerous that
they are very negligently perused, and it is, therefore, become
necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by
eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetick.

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement. I remember a
_wash-ball_ that had a quality truly wonderful--it gave an _exquisite
edge to the razor_. And there are now to be sold, _for ready money
only_, some _duvets for bed-coverings, of down, beyond comparison
superior to what is called otter-down_, and indeed such, that its _many
excellencies cannot be here set forth_. With one excellence we are made
acquainted--_it is warmer than four or five blankets, and lighter than
one. _

There are some, however, that know the prejudice of mankind in favour of
modest sincerity. The vender of the _beautifying fluid_ sells a lotion
that repels pimples, washes away freckles, smooths the skin, and plumps
the flesh; and yet, with a generous abhorrence of ostentation,
confesses, that it will not _restore the bloom of fifteen to a lady of
fifty_.

The true pathos of advertisements must have sunk deep into the heart of
every man that remembers the zeal shown by the seller of the _anodyne
necklace_, for the ease and safety of _poor teething infants_, and the
affection with which he warned every mother, that _she would never
forgive herself_, if her infant should perish without a necklace.

I cannot but remark to the celebrated author who gave, in his
notifications of the camel and dromedary, so many specimens of the
genuine sublime, that there is now arrived another subject yet more
worthy of his pen. _A famous Mohawk Indian warrior, who took_ Dieskaw
_the French general prisoner, dressed in the same manner with the native
Indians when they go to war, with his face and body painted, with his
scalping-knife, tom-axe, and all other implements of war! a sight worthy
the curiosity of every true Briton! _ This is a very powerful
description; but a critick of great refinement would say, that it
conveys rather _horrour_ than _terrour_. An Indian, dressed as he goes
to war, may bring company together; but if he carries the scalping-knife
and tom-axe, there are many true Britons that will never be persuaded to
see him but through a grate.

It has been remarked by the severer judges, that the salutary sorrow of
tragick scenes is too soon effaced by the merriment of the epilogue; the
same inconvenience arises from the improper disposition of
advertisements. The noblest objects may be so associated as to be made
ridiculous. The camel and dromedary themselves might have lost much of
their dignity between _the true flower of mustard_ and the _original
Daffy's elixir_; and I could not but feel some indignation when I found
this illustrious Indian warrior immediately succeeded by _a fresh parcel
of Dublin butter_.

The trade of advertising is now so near to perfection, that it is not
easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised
in due subordination to the publick good, I cannot but propose it as a
moral question to these masters of the publick ear, Whether they do not
sometimes play too wantonly with our passions, as when the registrar of
lottery-tickets invites us to his shop by an account of the prize which
he sold last year; and whether the advertising controvertists do not
indulge asperity of language without any adequate provocation; as in the
dispute about _straps for razors_, now happily subsided, and in the
altercation which at present subsists concerning _eau de luce_?

In an advertisement it is allowed to every man to speak well of himself,
but I know not why he should assume the privilege of censuring his
neighbour. He may proclaim his own virtue or skill, but ought not to
exclude others from the same pretensions.

Every man that advertises his own excellence should write with some
consciousness of a character which dares to call the attention of the
publick. He should remember that his name is to stand in the same paper
with those of the king of Prussia and the emperour of Germany, and
endeavour to make himself worthy of such association.

Some regard is likewise to be paid to posterity. There are men of
diligence and curiosity who treasure up the papers of the day merely
because others neglect them, and in time they will be scarce. When these
collections shall be read in another century, how will numberless
contradictions be reconciled? and how shall fame be possibly distributed
among the tailors and bodice-makers of the present age?

Surely these things deserve consideration. It is enough for me to have
hinted my desire that these abuses may be rectified; but such is the
state of nature, that what all have the right of doing, many will
attempt without sufficient care or due qualifications[1].

[1] A history of newspapers, more diffuse than the chronological series
in Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, Vol. iv. is desirable. See Preface.




No. 41. SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1759.

The following letter relates to an affliction perhaps not necessary to
be imparted to the publick; but I could not persuade myself to suppress
it, because I think, I know the sentiments to be sincere, and I feel no
disposition to provide for this day any other entertainment.

At, tu quisquis eris, miseri qui cruda poetae
Credideris fletu funera digna tuo,
Haec postrema tibi sit flendi causa, fluatque
Lenis inoffenso vitaque morsque gradu. OVID.

Mr. Idler,

Notwithstanding the warnings of philosophers, and the daily examples of
losses and misfortunes which life forces upon our observation, such is
the absorption of our thoughts in the business of the present day, such
the resignation of our reason to empty hopes of future felicity, or such
our unwillingness to foresee what we dread, that every calamity comes
suddenly upon us, and not only presses us as a burden, but crushes as a
blow.

There are evils which happen out of the common course of nature, against
which it is no reproach not to be provided. A flash of lightning
intercepts the traveller in his way. The concussion of an earthquake
heaps the ruins of cities upon their inhabitants. But other miseries
time brings, though silently yet visibly, forward by its even lapse,
which yet approach us unseen, because we turn our eyes away, and seize
us unresisted, because we could not arm ourselves against them but by
setting them before us.

That it is vain to shrink from what cannot be avoided, and to hide that
from ourselves which must some time be found, is a truth which we all
know, but which all neglect, and, perhaps, none more than the
speculative reasoner, whose thoughts are always from home, whose eye
wanders over life, whose fancy dances after meteors of happiness kindled
by itself, and who examines every thing rather than his own state.

Nothing is more evident than that the decays of age must terminate in
death; yet there is no man, says Tully, who does not believe that he may
yet live another year; and there is none who does not, upon the same
principle, hope another year for his parent or his friend: but the
fallacy will be in time detected; the last year, the last day, must
come. It has come, and is past. The life which made my own life pleasant
is at an end, and the gates of death are shut upon my prospects.

The loss of a friend upon whom the heart was fixed, to whom every wish
and endeavour tended, is a state of dreary desolation, in which the mind
looks abroad impatient of itself, and finds nothing but emptiness and
horrour. The blameless life, the artless tenderness, the pious
simplicity, the modest resignation, the patient sickness, and the quiet
death, are remembered only to add value to the loss, to aggravate regret
for what cannot be amended, to deepen sorrow for what cannot be
recalled.

These are the calamities by which Providence gradually disengages us
from the love of life. Other evils fortitude may repel, or hope may
mitigate; but irreparable privation leaves nothing to exercise
resolution or flatter expectation. The dead cannot return, and nothing
is left us here but languishment and grief.

Yet such is the course of nature, that whoever lives long must outlive
those whom he loves and honours. Such is the condition of our present
existence, that life must one time lose its associations, and every
inhabitant of the earth must walk downward to the grave alone and
unregarded, without any partner of his joy or grief, without any
interested witness of his misfortunes or success.

Misfortune, indeed, he may yet feel; for where is the bottom of the
misery of man? But what is success to him that has none to enjoy it?
Happiness is not found in self-contemplation; it is perceived only when
it is reflected from another.

We know little of the state of departed souls, because such knowledge is
not necessary to a good life. Reason deserts us at the brink of the
grave, and can give no further intelligence. Revelation is not wholly
silent.
"There is joy in the angels of Heaven over one sinner that
repenteth;" and, surely, this joy is not incommunicable to souls
disentangled from the body, and made like angels.

Let hope therefore dictate, what revelation does not confute, that the
union of souls may still remain; and that we who are struggling with
sin, sorrow, and infirmities, may have our part in the attention and
kindness of those who have finished their course, and are now receiving
their reward.

These are the great occasions which force the mind to take refuge in
religion: when we have no help in ourselves, what can remain but that we
look up to a higher and a greater Power? and to what hope may we not
raise our eyes and hearts, when we consider that the greatest POWER is
the BEST?

Surely there is no man who, thus afflicted, does not seek succour in the
_gospel_, which has brought _life and immortality to light_. The
precepts of Epicurus, who teaches us to endure what the laws of the
universe make necessary, may silence, but not content us. The dictates
of Zeno, who commands us to look with indifference on external things,
may dispose us to conceal our sorrow, but cannot assuage it. Real
alleviation of the loss of friends, and rational tranquillity, in the
prospect of our own dissolution, can be received only from the promises
of Him in whose hands are life and death, and from the assurance of
another and better state, in which all tears will be wiped from the
eyes, and the whole soul shall be filled with joy. Philosophy may infuse
stubbornness, but Religion only can give patience[1].

I am, &c.

[1] See Preface.




No. 42. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1759.

The subject of the following letter is not wholly unmentioned by the
Rambler. The Spectator has also a letter containing a case not much
different. I hope my correspondent's performance is more an effort of
genius, than an effusion of the passions; and that she hath rather
attempted to paint some possible distress, than really feels the evils
which she has described.

TO THE IDLER.

Sir,

There is a cause of misery, which, though certainly known both to you
and your predecessors, has been little taken notice of in your papers; I
mean the snares that the bad behaviour of parents extends over the paths
of life which their children are to tread after them; and as I make no
doubt but the Idler holds the shield for virtue, as well as the glass
for folly; that he will employ his leisure hours as much to his own
satisfaction in warning his readers against a danger, as in laughing
them out of a fashion: for this reason I am tempted to ask admittance
for my story in your paper, though it has nothing to recommend it but
truth, and the honest wish of warning others to shun the track which, I
am afraid, may lead me at last to ruin.

I am the child of a father, who, having always lived in one spot in the
country where he was born, and having had no genteel education himself,
thought no qualifications in the world desirable but as they led up to
fortune, and no learning necessary to happiness but such as might most
effectually teach me to make the best market of myself. I was
unfortunately born a beauty, to a full sense of which my father took
care to flatter me; and having, when very young, put me to a school in
the country, afterwards transplanted me to another in town, at the
instigation of his friends, where his ill-judged fondness let me remain
no longer than to learn just enough experience to convince me of the
sordidness of his views, to give me an idea of perfections which my
present situation will never suffer me to reach, and to teach me
sufficient morals to dare to despise what is bad, though it be in a
father.

Thus equipped (as he thought completely) for life, I was carried back
into the country, and lived with him and my mother in a small village,
within a few miles of the county town; where I mixed, at first with
reluctance, among company which, though I never despised, I could not
approve, as they were brought up with other inclinations, and narrower
views than my own. My father took great pains to show me every where,
both at his own house, and at such publick diversions as the country
afforded: he frequently told the people all he had was for his daughter;
took care to repeat the civilities I had received from all his friends
in London; told how much I was admired, and all his little ambition
could suggest to set me in a stronger light.

Thus have I continued tricked out for sale, as I may call it, and
doomed, by parental authority, to a state little better than that of
prostitution. I look on myself as growing cheaper every hour, and am
losing all that honest pride, that modest confidence, in which the
virgin dignity consists. Nor does my misfortune stop here: though many
would be too generous to impute the follies of a father to a child whose
heart has set her above them; yet I am afraid the most charitable of
them will hardly think it possible for me to be a daily spectatress of
his vices without tacitly allowing them, and at last consenting to them,
as the eye of the frightened infant is, by degrees, reconciled to the
darkness of which at first it was afraid.

It is a common opinion, he himself must very well know, that vices, like
diseases, are often hereditary; and that the property of the one is to
infect the manners, as the other poisons the springs of life.

Yet this, though bad, is not the worst; my father deceives himself in
the hopes of the very child he has brought into the world; he suffers
his house to be the seat of drunkenness, riot, and irreligion, who
seduces, almost in my sight, the menial servant, converses with the
prostitute, and corrupts the wife! Thus I, who from my earliest dawn of
reason was taught to think that at my approach every eye sparkled with
pleasure, or was dejected as conscious of superior charms, am excluded
from society, through fear lest I should partake, if not of my father's
crimes, at least of his reproach. Is a parent, who is so little
solicitous for the welfare of a child, better than a pirate who turns a
wretch adrift in a boat at sea, without a star to steer by, or an anchor
to hold it fast? Am I not to lay all my miseries at those doors which
ought to have been opened only for my protection? And if doomed to add
at last one more to the number of those wretches whom neither the world
nor its law befriends, may I not justly say that I have been awed by a
parent into ruin? But though a parent's power is screened from insult
and violation by the very words of Heaven, yet surely no laws, divine or
human, forbid me to remove myself from the malignant shade of a plant
that poisons all around it, blasts the bloom of youth, checks its
improvements, and makes all its flowrets fade; but to whom can the
wretched, can the dependant fly? For me to fly a father's house, is to
be a beggar: I have only one comfort amidst my anxieties, a pious
relation, who bids me appeal to Heaven for a witness to my just
intentions, fly as a deserted wretch to its protection; and, being asked
who my father is, point, like the ancient philosopher, with my finger to
the heavens.

The hope in which I write this is, that you will give it a place in your
paper; and, as your essays sometimes find their way into the country,
that my father may read my story there; and, if not for his own sake,
yet for mine, spare to perpetuate that worst of calamities to me, the
loss of character, from which all his dissimulation has not been able to
rescue himself. Tell the world, Sir, that it is possible for virtue to
keep its throne unshaken without any other guard than itself; that it is
possible to maintain that purity of thought so necessary to the
completion of human excellence, even in the midst of temptations; when
they have no friend within, nor are assisted by the voluntary indulgence
of vicious thoughts.

If the insertion of a story like this does not break in on the plan of
your paper, you have it in your power to be a better friend than her
father to

PERDITA[1].

[1]From an unknown correspondent.




No. 43. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1759.

The natural advantages which arise from the position of the earth which
we inhabit with respect to the other planets, afford much employment to
mathematical speculation; by which it has been discovered, that no other
conformation of the system could have given such commodious
distributions of light and heat, or imparted fertility and pleasure to
so great a part of a revolving sphere.

It may be, perhaps, observed by the moralist, with equal reason, that
our globe seems particularly fitted for the residence of a being, placed
here only for a short time, whose task is to advance himself to a higher
and happier state of existence, by unremitted vigilance of caution, and
activity of virtue.

The duties required of man are such as human nature does not willingly
perform, and such as those are inclined to delay who yet intend some
time to fulfil them. It was, therefore, necessary that this universal
reluctance should be counteracted, and the drowsiness of hesitation
wakened into resolve; that the danger of procrastination should he
always in view, and the fallacies of security be hourly detected.

To this end all the appearances of nature uniformly conspire. Whatever
we see on every side reminds us of the lapse of time and the flux of
life. The day and night succeed each other, the rotation of seasons
diversifies the year, the sun rises, attains the meridian, declines, and
sets; and the moon every night changes its form.

The day has been considered as an image of the year, and the year as the
representation of life. The morning answers to the spring, and the
spring to childhood and youth; the noon corresponds to the summer, and
the summer to the strength of manhood. The evening is an emblem of
autumn, and autumn of declining life. The night with its silence and
darkness shows the winter, in which all the powers of vegetation are
benumbed; and the winter points out the time when life shall cease, with
its hopes and pleasures.

He that is carried forward, however swiftly, by a motion equable and
easy, perceives not the change of place but by the variation of objects.
If the wheel of life, which rolls thus silently along, passed on through
undistinguishable uniformity, we should never mark its approaches to the
end of the course. If one hour were like another; if the passage of the
sun did not show that the day is wasting; if the change of seasons did
not impress upon us the flight of the year; quantities of duration equal
to days and years would glide unobserved. If the parts of time were not
variously coloured, we should never discern their departure or
succession, but should live thoughtless of the past, and careless of the
future, without will, and perhaps without power, to compute the periods
of life, or to compare the time which is already lost with that which
may probably remain.

But the course of time is so visibly marked, that it is observed even by
the birds of passage, and by nations who have raised their minds very
little above animal instinct: there are human beings whose language does
not supply them with words by which they can number five, but I have
read of none, that have not names for day and night, for summer and
winter.

Yet it is certain, that these admonitions of nature, however forcible,
however importunate, are too often vain; and that many who mark with
such accuracy the course of time, appear to have little sensibility of
the decline of life. Every man has something to do which he neglects;
every man has faults to conquer which he delays to combat.

So little do we accustom ourselves to consider the effects of time, that
things necessary and certain often surprise us like unexpected
contingencies. We leave the beauty in her bloom, and, after an absence
of twenty years, wonder, at our return, to find her faded. We meet those
whom we left children, and can scarcely persuade ourselves to treat them
as men. The traveller visits in age those countries through which he
rambled in his youth, and hopes for merriment at the old place. The man
of business, wearied with unsatisfactory prosperity, retires to the town
of his nativity, and expects to play away the last years with the
companions of his childhood, and recover youth in the fields, where he
once was young.

From this inattention, so general and so mischievous, let it be every
man's study to exempt himself. Let him that desires to see others happy
make haste to give, while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that
every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his
benefaction. And let him, who purposes his own happiness, reflect, that
while he forms his purpose the day rolls on, and _the night cometh when
no man can work_.




No. 44. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1759.

Memory is, among the faculties of the human mind, that of which we make
the most frequent use, or rather that of which the agency is incessant,
or perpetual. Memory is the primary and fundamental power, without which
there could be no other intellectual operation. Judgment and
ratiocination suppose something already known, and draw their decisions
only from experience. Imagination selects ideas from the treasures of
remembrance, and produces novelty only by varied combinations. We do not
even form conjectures of distant, or anticipations of future events, but
by concluding what is possible from what is past.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution; by one images
are accumulated, and by the other produced for use. Collection is always
the employment of our first years; and distribution commonly that of our
advanced age.

To collect and reposite the various forms of things, is far the most
pleasing part of mental occupation. We are naturally delighted with
novelty, and there is a time when all that we see is new. When first we
enter into the world, whithersoever we turn our eyes, they meet
knowledge with pleasure at her side; every diversity of nature pours
ideas in upon the soul; neither search nor labour are necessary; we have
nothing more to do than to open our eyes, and curiosity is gratified.

Much of the pleasure which the first survey of the world affords, is
exhausted before we are conscious of our own felicity, or able to
compare our condition with some other possible state. We have,
therefore, few traces of the joy of our earliest discoveries; yet we all
remember a time, when nature had so many untasted gratifications, that
every excursion gave delight which, can now be found no longer, when the
noise of a torrent, the rustle of a wood, the song of birds, or the play
of lambs, had power to fill the attention, and suspend all perception of
the course of time.

But these easy pleasures are soon at an end; we have seen in a very
little time so much, that we call out for new objects of observation,
and endeavour to find variety in books and life. But study is laborious,
and not always satisfactory; and conversation has its pains as well
pleasures; we are willing to learn, but not willing to be taught; we are
pained by ignorance, but pained yet more by another's knowledge.

From the vexation of pupilage men commonly set themselves free about the
middle of life, by shutting up the avenues of intelligence, and
resolving to rest in their present state; and they, whose ardour of
inquiry continues longer, find themselves insensibly forsaken by their
instructors. As every man advances in life, the proportion between those
that are younger and that are older than himself is continually
changing; and he that has lived half a century finds few that do not
require from him that information which he once expected from those that
went before him.

Then it is, that the magazines of memory are opened, and the stores of
accumulated knowledge are displayed by vanity or benevolence, or in
honest commerce of mutual interest. Every man wants others, and is,
therefore, glad when he is wanted by them. And as few men will endure
the labour of intense meditation without necessity, he that has learned
enough for his profit or his honour, seldom endeavours after further
acquisitions.

The pleasure of recollecting speculative notions would not be much less
than that of gaining them, if they could be kept pure and unmingled with
the passages of life; but such is the necessary concatenation of our
thoughts, that good and evil are linked together, and no pleasure recurs
but associated with pain. Every revived idea reminds us of a time when
something was enjoyed that is now lost, when some hope was not yet
blasted, when some purpose had yet not languished into sluggishness or
indifference.

Whether it be, that life has more vexations than comforts, or, what is
in the event just the same, that evil makes deeper impression than good,
it is certain that few can review the time past without heaviness of
heart. He remembers many calamities incurred by folly, many
opportunities lost by negligence. The shades of the dead rise up before
him; and he laments the companions of his youth, the partners of his
amusements, the assistants of his labours, whom the hand of death has
snatched away.

When an offer was made to Themistocles of teaching him the art of
memory, he answered, that he would rather wish for the art of
forgetfulness. He felt his imagination haunted by phantoms of misery
which he was unable to suppress, and would gladly have calmed his
thoughts with some _oblivious antidote_. In this we all resemble one
another; the hero and the sage are, like vulgar mortals, overburdened by
the weight of life; all shrink from recollection, and all wish for an
art of forgetfulness[1].

[1] Read the sublime story of Sadak in search of the waters of oblivion
the Tales of the Genii. Those who have seen Martin's picture on the
subject, have failed almost to recognise the respective limits of
poetry and of painting.




No. 45. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1759.

There is in many minds a kind of vanity exerted to the disadvantage of
themselves; a desire to be praised for superior acuteness discovered
only in the degradation of their species, or censure of their country.

Defamation is sufficiently copious. The general lampooner of mankind may
find long exercise for his zeal or wit, in the defects of nature, the
vexations of life, the follies of opinion, and the corruptions of
practice. But fiction is easier than discernment; and most of these
writers spare themselves the labour of inquiry, and exhaust their
virulence upon imaginary crimes, which, as they never existed, can never
be amended.

That the painters find no encouragement among the English for many other
works than portraits, has been imputed to national selfishness. 'Tis
vain, says the satirist, to set before, any Englishman the scenes of
landscape, or the heroes of history; nature and antiquity are nothing in
his eye; he has no value but for himself, nor desires any copy but of
his own form.

Whoever is delighted with his own picture must derive his pleasure from
the pleasure of another. Every man is always present to himself, and
has, therefore, little need of his own resemblance, nor can desire it,
but for the sake of those whom he loves, and by whom he hopes to be
remembered. This use of the art is a natural and reasonable consequence
of affection; and though, like other human actions, it is often
complicated with pride, yet even such pride is more laudable than that
by which palaces are covered with pictures, that, however excellent,
neither imply the owner's virtue, nor excite it.

Genius is chiefly exerted in historical pictures; and the art of the
painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But
it is in painting as in life; what is greatest is not always best. I
should grieve to see Reynolds transfer to heroes and to goddesses, to
empty splendour and to airy fiction, that art which is now employed in
diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the
affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead[1].

Yet in a nation great and opulent there is room, and ought to be
patronage, for an art like that of painting through all its diversities;
and it is to be wished, that the reward now offered for an historical
picture may excite an honest emulation, and give beginning to an English
school.

It is not very easy to find an action or event that can be efficaciously
represented by a painter.

He must have an action not successive but instantaneous; for the time of
a picture is a single moment. For this reason, the death of Hercules
cannot well be painted, though, at the first view, it flatters the
imagination with very glittering ideas: the gloomy mountain, overhanging
the sea, and covered with trees, some bending to the wind, and some torn
from their roots by the raging hero; the violence with which he rends
from his shoulders the envenomed garment; the propriety with which his
muscular nakedness may be displayed; the death of Lycas whirled from the
promontory; the gigantick presence of Philoctetes; the blaze of the
fatal pile, which the deities behold with grief and terrour from the
sky.

All these images fill the mind, but will not compose a picture, because
they cannot be united in a single moment[2]. Hercules must have rent his
flesh at one time, and tossed Lycas into the air at another; he must
first tear up the trees, and then lie down upon the pile.

The action must be circumstantial and distinct. There is a passage in
the Iliad which cannot be read without strong emotions. A Trojan prince,
seized by Achilles in the battle, falls at his feet, and in moving terms
supplicates for life. "How can a wretch like thee," says the haughty
Greek, "intreat to live, when thou knowest that the time must come when
Achilles is to die? " This cannot be painted, because no peculiarity of
attitude or disposition can so supply the place of language as to
impress the sentiment.

The event painted must be such as excites passion, and different
passions in the several actors, or a tumult of contending passions in
the chief.

Perhaps the discovery of Ulysses by his nurse is of this kind. The
surprise of the nurse mingled with joy; that of Ulysses checked by
prudence, and clouded by solicitude; and the distinctness of the action
by which the scar is found; all concur to complete the subject. But the
picture, having only two figures, will want variety.

A much nobler assemblage may be furnished by the death of Epaminondas.
The mixture of gladness and grief in the face of the messenger who
brings his dying general an account of the victory; the various passions
of the attendants; the sublimity of composure in the hero, while the
dart is by his own command drawn from his side, and the faint gleam of
satisfaction that diffuses itself over the languor of death; are worthy
of that pencil which yet I do not wish to see employed upon them.

If the design were not too multifarious and extensive, I should wish
that our painters would attempt the dissolution of the parliament by
Cromwell[3]. The point of time may be chosen when Cromwell, looking
round the Pandaemonium with contempt, ordered the bauble to be taken
away; and Harrison laid hands on the Speaker to drag him from the chair.

The various appearances which rage, and terrour, and astonishment, and
guilt, might exhibit in the faces of that hateful assembly, of whom the
principal persons may be faithfully drawn from portraits or prints; the
irresolute repugnance of some, the hypocritical submissions of others,
the ferocious insolence of Cromwell, the rugged brutality of Harrison,
and the general trepidation of fear and wickedness, would, if some
proper disposition could be contrived, make a picture of unexampled
variety, and irresistible instruction.

[1] Some judicious remarks on portrait painting may be found in
Chalmers' Preface to Idler, Brit. Ess. 33.

The difference between the French and English schools, in this
department of the Art, well proves that mind has scope for its
powers in portrait, and that genius alone can so generalize the
details "as to identify the individual man with the dignity of his
thinking powers. "

[2] Has that picture, which is considered the finest in the world, the
transfiguration, this requisite? Could any human eye, at one and the
same moment, have beheld the apostles baffled with the stubborn
spirit which they had not faith to quell, and the glories on the
Mount?

[3] This subject has now been most successfully handled by West. Hall's
exquisite engraving has rendered the picture familiar.




No. 40. SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 1759.

_Fugit ad salices, sed, se cupit ante videri_. VIRGIL.

Mr. Idler,

I am encouraged, by the notice you have taken of Betty Broom, to
represent the miseries which I suffer from a species of tyranny, which,
I believe, is not very uncommon, though perhaps it may have escaped the
observation of those who converse little with fine ladies, or see them
only in their publick characters.

To this method of venting my vexation I am the more inclined, because if
I do not complain to you, I must burst in silence; for my mistress has
teased me and teased me till I can hold no longer, and yet I must not
tell her of her tricks. The girls that live in common services can
quarrel, and give warning, and find other places; but we that live with
great ladies, if we once offend them, have, nothing left but to return
into the country.

I am waiting-maid to a lady who keeps the best company, and is seen at
every place of fashionable resort. I am envied by all the maids in the
square, for few countesses leave off so many clothes as my mistress, and
nobody shares with me: so that I supply two families in the country with
finery for the assizes and horse-races, besides what I wear myself. The
steward and housekeeper have joined against me to procure my removal,
that they may advance a relation of their own; but their designs are
found out by my lady, who says I need not fear them, for she will never
have dowdies about her.

You would think, Mr. Idler, like others, that I am very happy, and may
well be contented with my lot. But I will tell you. My lady has an odd
humour. She never orders any thing in direct words, for she loves a
sharp girl that can take a hint.

I would not have you suspect that she has any thing to hint which she is
ashamed to speak at length; for none can have greater purity of
sentiment, or rectitude of intention. She has nothing to hide, yet
nothing will she tell. She always gives her directions obliquely and
allusively, by the mention of something relative or consequential,
without any other purpose than to exercise my acuteness and her own.

It is impossible to give a notion of this style otherwise than by
examples. One night, when she had sat writing letters till it was time
to be dressed, _Molly_, said she, _the Ladies are all to be at Court
to-night in white aprons_. When she means that I should send to order the
chair, she says, _I think the streets are clean, I may venture to walk_.
When she would have something put into its place, she bids me _lay it on
the floor_. If she would have me snuff the candles, she asks _whether I
think her eyes are like a cat's_? If she thinks her chocolate delayed,
she talks of _the benefit of abstinence_. If any needle-work is
forgotten, she supposes _that I have heard of the lady who died by
pricking her finger_.

She always imagines that I can recall every thing past from a single
word. If she wants her head from the milliner, she only says, _Molly,
you know Mrs. Tape_. If she would have the mantua-maker sent for, she
remarks _that Mr. Taffety, the mercer, was here last week_. She ordered,
a fortnight ago, that the first time she was abroad all day I should
choose her a new set of coffee-cups at the china-shop: of this she
reminded me yesterday, as she was going down stairs, by saying, _You
can't find your way now to Pall-mall_.

All this would never vex me, if, by increasing my trouble, she spared
her own; but, dear Mr. Idler, is it not as easy to say _coffee-cups_, as
_Pall-mall_? and to tell me in plain words what I am to do, and when it
is to be done, as to torment her own head with the labour of finding
hints, and mine with that of understanding them?

When first I came to this lady, I had nothing like the learning that I
have now; for she has many books, and I have much time to read; so that
of late I seldom have missed her meaning: but when she first took me I
was an ignorant girl; and she, who, as is very common, confounded want
of knowledge with want of understanding, began once to despair of
bringing me to any thing, because, when I came into her chamber at the
call of her bell, she asked me, _Whether we lived in Zembla_; and I did
not guess the meaning of her inquiry, but modestly answered, that _I
could not tell_. She had happened to ring once when I did not hear her,
and meant to put me in mind of that country where sounds are said to be
congealed by the frost.

Another time, as I was dressing her head, she began to talk on a sudden
of _Medusa_, and _snakes_, and _men turned into stone, and maids that,
if they were not watched, would let their mistresses be Gorgons_. I
looked round me half frightened, and quite bewildered; till at last,
finding that her literature was thrown away upon me, she bid me with
great vehemence, reach the curling-irons.

It is not without some indignation, Mr. Idler, that I discover, in these
artifices of vexation, something worse than foppery or caprice; a mean
delight in superiority, which knows itself in no danger of reproof or
opposition; a cruel pleasure in seeing the perplexity of a mind obliged
to find what is studiously concealed, and a mean indulgence of petty
malevolence, in the sharp censure of involuntary, and very often of
inevitable, failings. When, beyond her expectation, I hit upon her
meaning, I can perceive a sudden cloud of disappointment spread over her
face; and have sometimes been afraid, lest I should lose her favour by
understanding her when she means to puzzle me.

This day, however, she has conquered my sagacity. When she went out of
her dressing-room, she said nothing, but, _Molly, you know_, and
hastened to her chariot. What I am to know is yet a secret; but if I do
not know before she comes back, what I yet have no means of discovering,
she will make my dullness a pretence for a fortnight's ill humour, treat
me as a creature devoid of the faculties necessary to the common duties
of life, and perhaps give the next gown to the housekeeper.

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

MOLLY QUICK.




No. 47. SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1759.

TO THE IDLER.

Mr. Idler,

I am the unfortunate wife of a city wit, and cannot but think that my
case may deserve equal compassion with any of those which have been
represented in your paper.

I married my husband within three months after the expiration of his
apprenticeship; we put our money together, and furnished a large and
splendid shop, in which he was for five years and a half diligent and
civil. The notice which curiosity or kindness commonly bestows on
beginners, was continued by confidence and esteem; one customer, pleased
with his treatment and his bargain, recommended another; and we were
busy behind the counter from morning to night.

Thus every day increased our wealth and our reputation. My husband was
often invited to dinner openly on the Exchange by hundred thousand
pounds men; and whenever I went to any of the halls, the wives of the
aldermen made me low courtesies. We always took up our notes before the
day, and made all considerable payments by draughts upon our banker.

You will easily believe that I was well enough pleased with my
condition; for what happiness can be greater than that of growing every
day richer and richer?